BEFORE: David Denman carries over from "Smart People", for what I hope is just a nice, calm film about buying someone a gift. That's a normal Valentine's Day thing, right?
Here's the TCM line-up for tomorrow - Tuesday, February 6, featuring nominees and winners in the Best Film Editing category:
7:00 am "The Great Waltz" (1938)
9:00 am "The Long Voyage Home" (1940)
11:00 am "The Black Stallion" (1979)
1:00 pm "Doctor Dolittle" (1967)
3:45 pm "Z" (1969)
6:00 pm "Bullitt" (1968)
8:00 pm "Air Force" (1943)
10:15 pm "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938)
12:15 am "How the West Was Won" (1962)
3:15 am "Grand Prix" (1966)
I've seen 4 of these: "The Black Stallion", "Doctor Dolittle", "Bullitt" and "The Adventures of Robin Hood", bringing me up to 25 seen out of 67, or 37%.
THE PLOT: A young married couple's lives are thrown into a harrowing tailspin when an acquaintance from the husband's past brings mysterious gifts and a horrifying secret to light after more than 20 years.
AFTER: OK, I didn't realize this was such a dark psychological thriller. I mean, I was joking before, I knew this was maybe a complicated relationship film, but I didn't know it was going to be so creepy. Not in a horror way, exactly, but it's more like a stalking sort of film. Anyway, it still qualifies as a good February film because it's about a relationship, just a very tricky one with a couple dark secrets, and an old friend who keeps turning up like a bad penny and just won't get the hint that he's not welcome in this couple's life.
But there's more to this story, things I won't spoil here - just don't go in expecting a happy reunion with an old high-school friend, because just isn't that kind of movie. The friend in question is named Gordon, "Gordo" for short, although it seems people called him by the nickname "Weirdo" in high-school, for good reason. He comes across as someone who means well, but just doesn't have the same social graces as other people, or at least no way to tell when he's not wanted. And it starts with a gift to welcome his old pal back to his hometown, and then before you know it he's dropping by at all hours of the day, extending dinner invitations and gifts like items needed around the house, bottles of wine, etc. What could possibly be wrong with all that?
Well, the unwritten rules are if someone gives you a gift, then you have to give THEM a thank-you gift for that gift, then the first person might feel the need to give ANOTHER gift in return, and then where does that end? Or if you have someone over for dinner, then they feel obligated to invite YOU over for dinner at their place, and so on. Too many people like this in your life, and you'll never get anything done. Like I had a little Super Bowl party yesterday, with chips, dips, salsa, queso, some of those little cocktail franks, chicken wings, some ribs, and then my wife asked me how many guests we were expecting. "Guests?" I said, "Who needs guests?" They'll only come over and eat our food and spoil the fun - this way we could eat whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted it, and we didn't have to share, or even clean up right away. The perfect party.
Anyway, this film is really about a descent into paranoia, fueled by the appearance of the mysterious stranger, and the doubt that he sows. While it's not a monster-based horror film, it's shot in such a way as to create all that great dramatic voyeuristic tension, proof that people who live in glass houses really ought to invest in some curtains. By the end you may not know which end is up, or who's telling the truth about anything - and you may pledge to be more careful about what information you reveal to casual friends.
Also starring Jason Bateman (last heard in "Zootopia"), Rebecca Hall (last seen in "The BFG"), Joel Edgerton (last seen in "Black Mass"), Allison Tolman, Tim Griffin (last seen in "American Sniper"), Busy Philipps (last seen in "He's Just Not That Into You"), Beau Knapp (last seen in "The Finest Hours"), Wendell Pierce (last seen in "Horrible Bosses"), P.J. Byrne (last seen in "The Wolf of Wall Street"), Mirrah Foulkes, Nash Edgerton, Katie Aselton.
RATING: 5 out of 10 pub trivia questions
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